Yesterday I took the day off from painting and drove my parents around to see the sights. We spent most of the morning at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth, watching the waves and staring out to sea. We spent most of the afternoon at the Wadsworth-Longfellow House and the Maine Historical Society. And then we came back to the doll-house and I made a baked ham, roasted fingerling potatoes, kale-from-my-garden dinner.

It was pleasant to amble around doing not much. The day was crisp and Octobery. The waves were satisfyingly crashy. The tour buses didn't arrive till we were about to leave.

The garden behind the Longfellow House was quiet and sweetly moldering. While we were there, my father accosted a man in a Chicago Cubs hat, commiserating with him about his team's loss. Instantly his wife bridled up. "We are still World Series champions," she declared. "Nobody else has won the title yet." It was quite entertaining, how passionately she was clinging to her last two days of Cub stardom.